Surviving Rape in Iran's Prisons

raped the girls to prevent them from going to heaven.21 It has also been reported that, on some occasions, the authorities sent families money and sweets with the bodies of executed female prisoners.22

The regular use of sexual violence and rape in Iranian prisons was confirmed in a 1986 letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from his designated successor Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montezari:

Do you know that in the Islamic Republic prisons, young girls are possessed by force? Do you know that it is a common practice to abuse girls with foul languages during interrogations? Do you know that there are many prisoners, who have been blinded, deafened, paralyzed or suffer from serious pains due to inhuman treatments and nobody addresses their plight? 23

However, reports of rape by interrogators and guards continued. In 1990, the Special Representative continued to report that “a virgin woman condemned to death goes through forced matrimony and is deflowered before the death sentence is carried out.”24 Navab-Ali Ghaem-Maghami was reported to have been sexually molested by the authorities in Ghom prison, and forced to watch other prisoners being tortured. His clothes were allegedly soiled with urine and excrement from other prisoners.25 Mehrangiz Yeganeh was repeatedly and brutally raped while serving two and a half years in Tabriz prison. The rapes caused damage to her intestines requiring surgery.26 A male prisoner was allegedly forced to perform sexual acts and another was sexually abused by four prison guards. 27

In 1991, a former prisoner told the Special Representative that he had witnessed investigators raping young women.28 In 1992, the Representative reported that the head of Ghazvin prison and a religious judge, Hojatol-Eslam Haj-Agha Khaleghi, was alleged to have made sexual advances to female prisoners and if they resisted, subject them to torture and rape. He was arrested but released after a short time and continued to work as an interrogator at the prison.29